Practice - my new favourite word
I really really thought I’d kicked the perfectionist habit.
I mean, nothing knocks the perfectionism out of you like being a parent. (According to somebody, we’re always doing it wrong…)
But the kids are teens now, aka the damage has been done, so I can throw myself back into business, writing & editing marketing copy for clients I love. All of whom have graduated past expecting perfection. We’re all so evolved.
I love my work. I choose clients I know I’ll succeed with. I offer work that I know I can deliver. My estimates are spot on, and I hit my deadlines.
When things go sideways, they get pulled back on track. I’m no perfectionist after all. I’m totally chill and go with the flow.
Until…
Huh boy. Until it’s time to try something new.
That’s when I whoosh back in time to gym class, when I threw to second instead of to home. Oh my god the kids on my team were mad. “Don’t you know anything?!?” (I didn’t… about baseball.)
That was the beginning of the end. Things I don’t do immediately well, I don’t do at all.
“Do or do not, there is no try.” Thanks to Yoda, I’ve mastered the art of not doing.
And then there was something I really wanted to do.
And I realized the only way I could do it, was PRACTICE.
Practice – my new favourite word.
Practice means doing something, not to finish but to continue. Practice means doing something imperfectly, over and over again.
What a great word. It can be a noun: “I’m adding meditation to my yoga practice.” It can be a verb: “It’s been a while since I practiced piano.”
For now, I’ll ignore the expression “practice makes perfect.” Because perfect is NOT my goal. I’m even going to ignore Churchill’s “Perfection is the enemy of progress,” because even ‘progress’ feels like too much pressure right now.
Practice doesn’t care how many times I stop and start.
That’s another hang-up I have. Anything I “start” ends with a “stop.” I decide to START eating healthy. I choose yogurt & granola for breakfast. That’s an easy one. Then make a salad for lunch. I replace the afternoon snack with a walk. By day three I’m rushed and skip breakfast. There are no salad fixings so I convince myself a sandwich on brown bread is fine. Then there’s a stressful moment and the Halloween candy comes out. My healthy eating streak has ended. By day three I’ve broken my streak. I started. Then I stopped.
If you’re trying to quit something, like smoking, then each cigarette is a failure. If you’re trying to build a habit, like running, then each run you miss brings on guilt.
But practice keeps going.
You can have a yoga practice, even in the moments you’re not doing yoga. (I don’t practice yoga, so let’s pretend this could be true.)
It’s not all or nothing.
“Do or do not” is a tap that turns on and off. Practice is a river that runs or trickles depending on snowmelt and rainfall. Even when it dries up the riverbed is there, waiting for rain.
There’s no goal. There’s no success, which means there’s no failure. It’s just the practice – the doing -- itself.
This post is part of my practice.
It’s a commitment I made to a club that helps me and a few treasured others build a practice of writing and posting. Week after week we sit together to pound out a post. Ready or not. Like it or not. Imperfectly, we keep each other going.
We’re practicing. Which gives us permission to do, over and over again; to be forever getting ready, without ever having to be ready.
When something gets in the way, which it will, I’m still practicing. When I post something lame, I’m still practicing. When one of my posts goes totally internationally book-deal-to-come viral, the practice isn’t over, because that’s not the goal.
While I’m doing, while I’m not doing, I’m building the practice. Yoda can lead his Jedi knights to progress and perfection. I’m not going to force anything; I’m just going to practice.